


faraway, so close

by emi_rose



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: F/M, and also sexy times, just...a whole lot of emotions, that are fraught with emotional tension
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-09-16
Updated: 2017-09-15
Packaged: 2018-12-30 08:02:47
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,736
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12104301
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/emi_rose/pseuds/emi_rose
Summary: Lucretia hasn't slept through the night in, oh, about a decade.





	faraway, so close

Lucretia, unsurprisingly, can’t sleep. Finished with the day’s work and unable to find an excuse to brew another pot of coffee, she sighs and stands up from her desk, intending to lose herself until she can’t keep her eyes open. If she’s lucky, she’ll sleep before dawn, if not, well, it won’t be the first time she has to keep up appearances. 

She settles underneath her favorite tree, tucked away behind the dome that houses everyone’s quarters. The methodical preparation of perfect ink - not too thick, not too thin - absorbs her racing thoughts, and when she sets brush to creamy, luxurious paper, she is subsumed by her art. Even then, it’s a wonder she takes so long to notice the presence beside her. For a moment, Lucretia expects him to jump out from behind the tree and yell “MAGNUS!”, the way he did for an entire cycle, irritating the hell out of everyone (and secretly amusing her). When he settles beside her, the gravity of what she has done settles on her shoulders a bit heavier. 

Magnus doesn’t speak, rather, he rests his back against the bark and watches Lucretia’s brush move in practiced strokes. It’s mesmerizing and calming, and as he watches, she begins to lean against him unconsciously, and he is filled with a jolt of longing that he can’t possibly remember or predict.

Cognizant of the distance she has cultivated, she hesitates, and settles for resting a hand on his knee. “Can’t sleep?” She asks, knowing that the reasons have changed over the years but the insomnia hasn’t. 

He hums noncommittally, neither of them acknowledging the trauma that keeps them from sleep. “Neither can you, apparently.”

She takes a deep breath and plunges her brush back onto the paper, mesmerizing them both. He watches her, not realizing he’s holding his breath until he exhales in a rush of warm air against her cheek. He loves watching her work. He always has. 

When Magnus realizes her cheeks are glistening with tears, his hand moves to the line of her jaw before he’s conscious of the movement. Lucretia expects his touch and doesn’t flinch a millimeter. He cups her cheek, gently caressing, and it is electric, hanging heavy in the steadily shrinking space between them.

“Lucretia?” he asks, voice cracking. He stands up, offers her a hand, and she takes it, rough and warm and big and comforting. With his touch, she is wracked by grief and regret and fear for what awaits him in Wonderland.

They walk wordlessly to Lucretia’s quarters. Lingering in the silence between them is the acknowledgement of the tension between them; an explanation for her recent reticence. 

When they arrive, she attempts propriety. “Would you like to come in, for a cup of tea, perhaps?” she asks, voice shaking with the knowledge that she shouldn’t do this, she is wrong to take advantage of him, any more than she already has, anyways.

Before she can come to her senses, shut the door, attempt to sleep and drain the pounding desire from her veins, he kisses her, pushing them across the threshold.

He strokes the small of Lucretia’s back in a familiar motion, muscle memory taking over in an unremembered intimacy. The sudden rush of memories it triggers makes her reel, and she remembers their first time, a desperate and awkward attempt to feel anything again after the trauma of the first few cycles. Magnus fumbles at the silver clasp on her outer cloak, and his fingers freeze, uncertain.

Her heart dips in an all-too-familiar ache, and she blushes. “Lucretia, are you sure?” That, too, hits her with a pang of familiarity, an echo of moments deep in the night more than a hundred years ago, when neither of them bore the weight of a universe on their shoulders. Ignoring the implication that he’s asking himself more than her, she answers with a shaky breath.

“It’s just...it’s been awhile. A long while.” Magnus nods and takes a half step back, holding her almost at arm’s length. She wonders for a split second if he sees through her, when his features soften and he laughs quietly.

“Then I’m honored. Madam.” Lucretia’s nose wrinkles in a way he should have remembered, should have delighted in, and he cracks a smile, but it’s not quite the same. He wraps her up in his arms, and that at least is familiar to her, and the way their bodies connect is an instinct deeper than memory, something that even Fisher couldn’t erase. It’s inexplicable, how perfectly she fits into the curve where his neck meets his shoulder, and he reaches for a wisp of a memory that should be there, but it floats away and he is left with a longing for a home he doesn’t know he misses.

Her kisses taste bittersweet in the back of his throat, inscrutable, heavy, and it’s not enough. He wants a hundred years to drink her in, and it almost all falls apart when he realizes he hasn’t thought of someone like this since Julia. His face freezes and Lucretia’s seen this look before. He’s shaken, and she is ice-cold, afraid of having made the biggest mistake of her life worse.

Now it’s Lucretia’s turn to pull away and ask, and his turn to respond in the affirmative, and their kisses have a renewed fervor, as if she’s worried this is their last chance. Magnus fumbles at the button resting enticingly on her throat and Lucretia murmurs appreciatively into his neck, unintelligible words morphing into kisses and nibbles, mapping the muscles under his neck with her mouth. 

By the time they land in her bed, clothes long abandoned in the entryway, Lucretia is fully committed to this, mistake or not; she has missed him, missed this, and even if the man standing before her is not the same Magnus who loved her on a hundred worlds, in this moment she doesn’t care. She’s still pulled to him by the same ineffable magnetism that brought them together lifetimes ago, and she’ll be damned if she doesn’t let go and enjoy it. 

She buries those thoughts and reaches out to caress Magnus’s face, as he stares at her form in what can only be described as wonderment. He trails fingertips from the hollow of her throat across her collarbones and down her chest, skirting her nipples with a tender touch that leaves her breathless and desirous. 

Lucretia stretches out languidly under his hands as they slide over curves they have explored a thousand times. He dips his tongue into the curve of her hip and it’s his muscle memory again, filling her with a warmth she didn’t know she was capable of feeling. When his fingers press inside her, she gasps and arches, and suddenly there is an emptiness where she wishes his fingers were.

“Lucretia? Do you want to stop? Did I do something?” His voice is shaky and tender, and this too is so familiar, this is her Magnus. She doesn’t respond, but looks at him, eyes lidded heavy with lust, and takes his fingers in her mouth. He moans deep in his throat as she sinks to her knees in front of him, kissing as she goes. When he caresses the back of her head, moving in rhythm with her, she moans around him and he supposes the desire to tangle her hair in his hands comes from Julia, but she knows better. She remembers the first time he gave in and let her please him for once, how he unpinned her hair and held on and couldn’t let go. 

She looks up at him, lips swollen and cheeks flushed, and he lifts her to her feet, gently turning them around, laying her supine, and he just can’t help himself. He runs a finger from the valley between her breasts to the tip of her chin, trailing goosebumps in his wake.

“You are...extraordinary,” he whispers reverently, and she pulls him closer, intoxicated, reveling in their proximity that is more than she ever hoped for and yet not enough. He sinks into her, and for Lucretia, it’s as if she’s still nineteen, still learning Magnus’s body, still learning how to love the six other pieces of her heart, still sparkling with purpose. For Magnus, nothing has felt quite like this. The closest he can come is remembering sweet reunions with Julia after months away traveling, but this is different. Melancholy, perhaps. Bittersweet, maybe. Comforting, absolutely.

Lucretia moans and her train of thought is substantially derailed. She arches up into him, eliciting a sharp breath in, and she smiles to herself at the familiarity. When she slides out from underneath him and gestures to him to lie down, he’s taken aback but follows suit, and when she is astride him, she is nothing short of regal. 

Their pace quickens, quiet moans become unbridled, and it’s not long before they come apart in each others’ arms, rendered incoherent and frenetic by a decade of need gone unfulfilled, and for Magnus, unremembered. Lucretia slumps on his chest, slick with sweat, and in yet another foolhardy moment (tonight is rife with them, it seems) kisses that spot behind his ear. Through the haze he wonders how she could have possibly known about that.

Magnus’s arms are just like she remembers them, and Lucretia has never felt so safe. She rests her head on his chest and listens to his heartbeat, following the familiar pattern of his breathing slowing and evening. His snores are comforting rather than irritating, and she tries to cry silently so as not to wake him - to make this moment stretch as long as possible. He mumbles in his sleep and draws her closer, hands warm on the bare skin of her back.

Lucretia remembers the last time they slept together through the night, the night before she set her plan in motion. The pain of remembering is enough to exhaust her, and she sleeps dreamlessly, for what she assumes is the last time in her life. She has so much work to do tomorrow. It’s almost Midsummer.

The next afternoon, Madam Director calls her Reclaimers into her office, with an assignment for them she is sure will end in unfathomable loss. And she looks at Magnus, they have returned to their familiar roles that don’t fit right, don’t fit the way they fit together. She looks away.

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much to @epersonae and @HMK and @hops for helping make this a thing. Magcretia hell is a really good place to be in. And thanks to WDA for letting me yell about this a lot for the past few days. Enjoy the Third Cake.


End file.
